This will be my last week as a resident of Northern Ireland. Come this Saturday, I am moving out of my rental house and on to my next adventure. After almost exactly six months here, I feel like it is definitely time to move on. But before I do so, I think it is worth reflecting on my time here, both the good and the bad, and all things I have learned.

I love board games, I really do. Ever since I was a kid desperately trying to convince my sister to play Children’s Monopoly I’ve love the camaraderie of time spent playing board games. Whether is it on Christmas Eve beside a roaring fire with the family or at a cottage with some drinks and a great group of friends, give me a board game night and I am a happy person.

I have now been in Northern Ireland for almost 6 weeks, but in someways it feels like I have been here for much, much longer. I have been wanting to write about my experience since arriving but I was hesitant to put down in black and white how I really felt. I felt like I should be excited about my adventure and only write about happy things, life-changing things, inspiring things. But I couldn’t find those words. Then I remembered why I started this blog. I started it for me. I wanted it to be a way to express my feelings, to work through my emotions, to reflect on the moment I was experiencing. Both the fantastic and the mundane, the happy and the heartbreaking, the personal and the public. I didn’t create this blog to satisfy an audience, to seek approved or to get attention. I wanted it to reflect me; my truth. And the truth is that when I first arrived in Northern Ireland I wasn’t having a happy, shiny adventure.